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Fort Hood CrossFit remembers fallen soldiers

"Myself, a combat veteran, I've done four tours, and it's great to have something to reflect and think about some of the soldiers that have given their lives, or sailors or servicemen and to remember those that I've lost," said Sergeant First Class Sam Alkire, with the 36th Engineer Brigade, a CrossFit athlete.

FORT HOOD — Fort Hood active duty soldiers and spouses too are pushing themselves to the limit to honor fallen soldiers this Memorial Day weekend.

The athletes are doing six days straight of grueling workouts this week, leading up to the well known Murph workout on Saturday. The CrossFit community nationwide has a lot of veterans and active duty soldiers, so Hero WODs are a way to honor those who gave the ultimate sacrifice. But this is first time Centurion CrossFit is doing the week of workouts on post.

"We've gotten a lot of positive feedback. We had one of our coaches who programmed it. Generally, the more people complain about it, the better the workouts are, so we've gotten a lot of that," said Sergeant Jacob Shattuck, the Centurion CrossFit owner who works for CRDAMC.

Shattuck says the Hero WODs are the toughest workouts you'll find at CrossFit, and Specialist Alejandro Escobedo with the 1st Cavalry Division would agree.

"They take the stamina out of you. You could say they take the living soul out of you, but it's nothing that's not impossible. You can do it, everybody can can do it," Escobedo said.

Friday's workout honored 23-year-old Fort Hood Army Specialist Scott Morrison who was killed by an IED when insurgent attacked his vehicle in Kandahar, Afghanistan in 2010.

"Any time it's somebody you know, part of your community, part of your area, you wanna work extra hard for those people to help honor their sacrifice," said Shattuck, referring to Friday's workout.

The Morrison involves a circuit of wall balls, box jumps and kettle ball swings, in sets of 50, 40, 30, 20 then 10.

"Not so bad in the beginning, but the middle part is probably the stickiest," said one athlete, who just finished up the intense workout.

But the Hero WODs take on special meaning for these soldiers.

"To remember those that I've lost or who have gotten injured out there, so it's good. It's a little bit of sweat and pain, but it makes you think about them and what we do and why we do it," said Sergeant First Class Sam Alkire with the 36th Engineer Brigade.

And it's important for military spouses, too. Hannah Stubert's husband is deployed in the Middle East right now with 3rd Cavalry Regiment, and she said she understands the significance of these difficult workouts.

"One of my really good friends, her brother was killed in Afghanistan in 2003. So, I guess it kind of hits more at home, especially during this week, leading up to Memorial Day," said Stubert.

The Murph workout on Saturday honors the memory of Navy Lieutenant Michael Murphy, who was killed in Afghanistan in 2005. Athletes run 1 mile, do 100 pull ups, 200 push ups, 300 air squats and run another mile to finish it off.

To find out more about Centurion CrossFit on Fort Hood and how you can join, click here.

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